Creativity inspired by nature...

I've created a series of drawings that aim to teach about some of the ecosystems that we visited during the quarter. As a biology major and having a focus on marine biology, I find that I tend to naturally become biased towards marine ecosystems when it comes to being creative with biology.

These are the first three drawings in my series. I've got one more in the works, but as the quarter is ending I thought I should post what I have now and hopefully will maintain my motivation to keep going and post more in the future.

I hope you enjoy them because I certainly had fun looking up facts and making these.

Thank you Claudia for a wonderful last quarter with CCS and at UCSB.

-Thea

Pickleweeds and parasites

The dominant plant in the salt marsh / slough habitats we observed was Salicornia virginica or "pickleweed" - so named because of its pickle-like appearance and salty taste.  Another common name is "glasswort".  This name is related to its use (centuries ago) --> - pickle weed was burned to produce a soda ash used in glass making.  Some other interesting notes about this plant:

• Ashes of pickle weed were utilized in the production of soap by Native Americans
• Tips are harvested and used in salads, steamed to serve as a vegetable, or pickled

And according to Wikipedia:

“The plant is one of the salicornia species being tested as biofuel crop as it is composed of 32% oil and being a halophyte can be irrigated with salt water”, which is much cheaper than freshwater. 

More info about pickleweed is given here on the Aquarium of the Pacific site.

 The other cool thing we observed about pickleweed was its association with the parasitic plant Saltmarsh dodder or "Witch's Hair", Cuscuta salina. 

 It's not silly-string, after all!

Flora right in front of CCS!

We had a nice walk around campus to view a very small portion of the flora.  I overlooked a few noteworthy plants right in front of our very own Old Little Theater.  We did talk about the Canary Islands Dragon's Blood (Dracaena draco), the Island Ironwoods (Lyonothamnus floribundus), and the sages (Salvia sp).  I took some photos and wanted to share some info about a few others...

The tree in the SW corner in front of the OLT is a Shamel (or Mexican) Ash, Fraxinus uhdei, in the olive family (Oleaceae).  Native to western and southern Mexico, and introduced to the U.S. as an ornamental tree.  Fruits are yellow-green winged seeds.  The sap from the stems or leaves may cause a skin rash!

Shamel ash, Fraxinus uhdei

Winged seeds of the Shamel Ash

 

One of the shrubs right in front of the OLT is the California flannelbush (or Fremontia), Fremontodendron californicum, which is in the mallow family (Malvaceae).  Native to California and western N. America.  This shrub is found on slopes in chaparral and dry woodland.  The leaves are fuzzy, or “flannel”-like.  Be careful - the hairs on the leaves are easily brushed off and can irritate your skin.  But aren’t those bright yellow blossoms beautiful!

Fremontia, or Flannel-bush, Fremontodendron californicum

Adorning the west-side of our CCS building, is the Matilija Poppy, Romneya coulteri, in the poppy family (Papaveraceae).  Native to southern California and Baja California.  This perennial plant grows in chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats, often in dry washes and canyons, generally away from the coast. The showy white flowers (that look like fried eggs!) are the largest of any plant native to California.

Matilija Poppy, Romneya coulteri

How to post to the blog

This information will be archived as one of the links on the right hand side.

HOW TO SIGN UP TO POST TO THE BLOG
You all received an invitation to join the blog. If you need me to send a new invite just let me know.
The invite comes as an e-mail from google with the heading: 'You have been invited to contribute to CCS Walking Biology Blog'. This will contain a link.
If you click on the link you will have two choices:
If you already have a Google account just log in with your username and password and follow the instructions.
If you don't have a Google account then click the link to sign up for an account. This requires very little in the way of information - just a valid e-mail, the password you want, and the name you want to use. I think you will then get sent an e-mail with a link to click on to validate your account.
If you haven't received that e-mail then check your spam folder since it is an automated e-mail it may have been filtered out as spam.

HOW TO POST
Adding posts is really easy. Starting from scratch you would go to:
http://www.blogger.com
and sign in at the top with your Google username and password.

You should then see the dashboard with the CCS Walking Biology Blog. Click on 'New Post' and a simple word processor type screen will come up. Adding a text only post is as simple as typing it and hitting 'Publish Post'. You will probably also want to add links though (the whole point of the blog really) and adding links is very easy. Just highlight the text you want linked and click the word 'link' on the toolbar at the top of
the entry form. Just cut and paste the link in directly from your browser, including the http://.

Further buttons at  the top allow you to format the text, add pictures, spell check and, usefully, remove all the formatting from any section. You can preview posts before publishing them if you wish. Oh and the spellcheck is automatic and very easy to use but comes up with some very strange and amusing corrections for words it doesn't know. It is a good idea to test any links after you have posted to make sure they work (and work as you expect).

Let me know if you have any questions. Rather than give a big long tutorial on how to use the blog publisher  I suggest you just play with it and then ask questions. It is very easy to delete posts, and preview them before you publish, so you can practice without messing anything up.

(thanks to John Latto for writing up these instructions for the CCS Bio Blog!!)